Here in Finland we have on ATIS a remark like heavy bird activity in vicinity of Helsinki. I don't know if it is widely used... Then the pilots know to look a little closer from the windows. There aren't any special "gadgets" to warn from those creatures. If we install transponder on them that would be much easier for the pilots

Salt Lake City Intl. has that same warning as Finnair MD-11 mentioned. Other than that I don't think there is any other way of avoiding them.
I have come very close to hitting birds several times but luckily never have.

One time I even flew an airplane with blood and feathers stuck to the prop.

Some airports have a hawk or falcon on the field to scare other birds away.

Sushka is correct. ORD and JFK have trained falcons to scare birds away, and I assume many other airports have them as well.

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I saw a TV program some months ago about a huge remote-controlled bird that is being designed for the same purpose, interesting idea.

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If you take a closer look at the picture on top you will see the birds are actually on the starboard side of the aircraft. Either those are very small birds (probably not too harmful for a bird strike) or there was some re-work done on that picture! It looks like a dangerous condition nonetheless because they could be really close to the aircraft, and any incident during landing is an undesirable situation.

This has been the source of debate within the pilot community since Wilbur and Orville. Around the country (and the world) you will see and hear many different methods used, such as birds of prey (real and artificial) and sound devices (fireworks and propane canons). Do they work? Who really knows, but I believe they do - for a while at least. (I've seen crows roosting near an operating propane canon.)

There are also techniques that "they" say pilots can do to minimize the risk of bird strikes. There are advocates of turning the weather radar on as well as using the flashing pulse lights that many aircraft have these days. Do these techniques work? I honestly don't know - personally I think that there's probably some merit to being all lit up. I believe that the birds want to avoid a mid-air as badly as we do and if we're lit up it makes us easier for them to see. As far as the radar goes, I honestly don't see how it could work but I've heard the recommendation from too many experienced pilots to totally discount it.

Bird strikes are a very common occurrence. More often than not, they result in little, if any damage, to anything but the bird. But obviously, that's not always the case. A few years back a goose went through the canopy of an F-4 landing at Mountain Home AFB. The guy in the back seat was able to land the airplane. If I remember correctly the guy in the front seat was either killed or very seriously injured. Also, a few years ago a Turbo-Commander crashed into Lake Michigan after ingesting some birds during takeoff killing everyone on board. I forget now what the exact figure is, but every year the USAF spends something over $100 million on bird strike damage.

Last year we had a 737 that had birds injested into both engines. The strange thing was that there were no other bird strikes on the aircraft. In addition the crew did not realize that they had hit anything. No sounds or abnormal engine indications.

Anyway the fan had blood splatter and the bypass had guts/feathers in the bypass. Fortanetly I was not assigned to the aircraft so I did not have to clean it out. My guess was that the plane skimmed right over a flock of starlings or some other small flocking bird. If the plane had run intoa flock of seagulls or crows the outcome might have been different.

About the only things airliner pilots can do is turn on all available lighting (supposedly makes the plane easier for other birds to see --both metal and tissue types) and fly as slow as practicable allowing birds the as much time as possible to avoid the larger metal birds. How well this works is anybody's guess. I hit some geese leaving DFW a couple of years ago. All lights on and only doing 200 knots [accellerating on departure]. Perhaps the paint on the engine spinner [that weird looking off-center white paint on spinners of large GE engines] kept them away from the engines since there was no evidence they entered them, but we'll never know for sure. A number of them did hit around the radome with some entering and passing just below the antenna itself causing a very loud bang [more like an explosion] when they impacted the pressure bulkhead behind the FO's feet.

As for airport activities, NKX / KNKX), USA - California AND Mountain View - Moffett Federal Airfield (NAS) (NUQ / KNUQ), USA - California">NAS [now MCAS] Miramar used to trip the grass near the runways high enough to allow small preditors to sneak up on flocking birds so those flocking birds would not stop near NKX's runways... too dangerous. East Miramar was allowed to grow to shoulder height bushes, again to allow larger preditors to close on smaller animals. Seemed to work pretty well as USN had extremely low bird-strike ratios with very high traffic ops. Will be interesting to see what this years numbers will be now that virtually all vegetation has been burnt away.

Birdstrikes are very common at the airport I fly out of. CPS is near the Mississippi and a major flyway for many migrating birds. Our flight school has 5-10 birdstrikes per year. I've had one. A couple months back a Lear 25 crashed just east of the airport when it ingested birds into both engines causing one to basically explode and the other to lose a majority of it's performance. Thankfully, all on board are alive and well with the exception of a few minor injuries.

Some airports clip the grass really short to remove hiding spaces for flocking birds. Normaly the birds permanently living at an airport are harmless because they are used to planes and move out of their way. You might see hawks sitting on the runway lights waiting for some mouse or rabbit to be scared by a plane, so that they can catch it. The problem are migrant swarms of birds, like starlings or sea gulls. On thing is to make the airport as unconvenient for them as possible and another one is to keep to a strict rubbish removal policy to prevent the airfield to attract birds in the first place.
BTW, ever heard of a UPS plane suffering a fish strike at 5000´ ?

As Jetguy mentioned, the USAF spends quite a bit of money every year for both bird strike repair and prevention. In the USAF we have a program called BASH, or Bird Avoidance and Strike Hazard. The basis is this, migratory patterns and nesting areas are very closely monitored by ground observers and aviaries, and a model is built. Whenever a bird is hit, the remains are sent to the Smithsonian Institute and identified, and the model is adjusted for that kind of bird. Based on this model and used in conjunction with scare tactics (falconry, decoys, pyrotechnics, etc) a local bash warning is issued which ranges from low-moderate-severe. During the migratory period a mandatory window of 1hr before and after sunset and sunrise is also used. While in this window, takeoff and landing (except emergency, of course) is prohibited. During other periods, based on the report , low, mod, severe, certain types of transitions are prohibited; I.E. during moderate, touch and goes are prohibited, but operational sorties are allowed to depart, but not land, etc. All of this info plays a part in a bigger formula known as ORM, Operational Risk Management, to determine the safety factors for a given flight.

I've had probably 15 bird strikes over the years, all but a few were just small, non-damage strikes. The worst I have had was from a Deer, not a bird. It did $85,000 damage, but that's another story.

I think MIA has trained dogs to chase the birds away. Also, I have heard of airports using cannons to scare away birds. They do not shoot anything out, but the loud boom scares the birds.

I have hit a bird in a C-152. A little blood and feathers were stuck to the front cowling. Also, someone I know hit a goose with a C-152 wing, and the goose was ripped in half. Surprisingly there was no damage, just a very small dent.

What about ristricting the area around the Airport if practicably possible would help in not having people staying there & reduce Garbage littering & subsequently reduce Birds.
Cause one of the many reasons birds approach Airports is for the Food.
Although cutting the grass does help.
regds
HAWK

Actually I did read about a "fish strike" at 5000 feet. It had something to do with an eagle carrying a salmon in its mouth and it let go of it; as such, it struck the windshield of some aircraft, and they crossed out bird and put fish in the accident report.

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